Motorola, the world's number two mobile phone maker, will shed 3,500 jobs in an effort to stem falling profits. Chief Executive Ed Zander revealed the job cuts after profits at Motorola almost halved in the three months to the end of 2006. Fourth quarter profits tumbled 48% to $624m (£316m; 482m euros) from $1.2bn at the same time last year. The fall in profits reflects cuts in mobile phone prices and tougher competition among premium products. Illinois-based Motorola has 23% of the global mobile phone market, but lags behind Finland's Nokia. Price pressure Motorola blamed "an unfavourable geographical and product-tier mix" for the decline in profits. Mr Zander said the fourth quarter of 2006 had been disappointing. ... http://news.bbc.co.uk

A Chinese property tycoon has been arrested on charges of bribery and forging tax receipts in a new corruption crackdown. Zhou Zhengyi was once named China's 11th richest man with an estimated fortune of more than $300m. Zhou was released from prison in May last year after serving a three-year sentence for manipulating the stock market and fraud. China's anti-corruption drive has led to thousands of arrests since 2003. Zhou was arrested on Sunday in Shanghai, according to Dragon TV. ...http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6285053.stm

Jurors who begin hearing evidence Monday against a pig farmer accused of being Canada's worst serial killer have been warned by the judge to expect testimony "as bad a horror movie." Robert William Pickton is charged with the deaths of 26 women, mostly prostitutes and drug addicts who vanished from Vancouver's impoverished Downtown Eastside neighborhood in the 1990s. He is accused of luring women to his family's 17-acre pig farm outside Vancouver, where investigators say he threw drunken raves with prostitutes and plenty of drugs. After his arrest in February 2002, health officials issued a tainted meat advisory to neighbors who may have bought pork from his farm, concerned that it may have contained human remains. Pickton, 56, will first be tried for six of the deaths and has pleaded not guilty to each. British Columbia Supreme Court Justice James Williams decided that the other charges would be heard in a later trial to avoid overburdening the jury....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2811420

Police and federal agents extended their search to Chicago on Sunday for four children and their mother, whose ex-boyfriend authorities say shot a man and kidnapped them in Indiana the day before. Authorities have issued an Amber Alert and said the children and their mother, 31-year-old Kimberly N. Walker, were in extreme danger. Police said Walker and Jerry D. White, 30, the father of the four children, once lived in Chicago, and White has family there. Police said they recovered a Dodge Intrepid that White used to flee and Walker’s two-door Saturn that he allegedly stole Friday. The cars were found Saturday night in Elkhart, about 90 miles east of Chicago. The cars have not provided additional clues to investigators, Elkhart police Lt. Peggy Snider said Sunday. Detective Sgt. Bill Wargo said an arrest warrant with charges of attempted murder and several counts of confinement had been issued for White....http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16739575/

The footage is shocking: A man lies screaming on the floor of a police station as officers sodomize him with a wooden pole. Compounding the shock, it turns out that it was the police who made the film, and that they then transmitted it to the cell phones of the victim's friends in order to humiliate him. For Egypt, the ordeal of 21-year-old Emad el-Kabir has been something of a Rodney King moment a sudden, stark glimpse of a reality which authorities routinely deny, but which human rights groups say is part of a pattern of police brutality. But unlike the tape of the Los Angeles police beating up King in 1991, which was aired almost immediately, the attack on el-Kabir happened a year ago, and has only became public months later after an Egyptian blogger posted it on his site and it reached YouTube....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=2811431

The man accused of kidnapping two Missouri boys and holding one of them for four years said life was good for him during that period, a newspaper reported Sunday.Michael Devlin, 41, said his own parents, who live nearby, have not visited him since his arrest earlier this month, The New York Post reported."I don't know how I'm going to explain myself to my parents," Devlin told the Post in two 15-minute interviews at the Franklin County Jail in Union, Mo., in his first public comments since his arrest, aside from a brief court appearance."It's much easier talking to a stranger about these things than your own parents."...http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-21-boys-found_x.htm?csp=34